I've been living at Spring Cypress for six months now. I am enjoying, but they are unclear yet as to whether they'd remain assisted living or go strictly to the nursing home side because of Covid and everything else. They have a whole section here that is quarantined already, so they told everyone that currently lives here to be prepared if it comes to that. I know that decision has not been made because they're still waiting to see what's gonna happen. In the meantime, I like it here, but they have quite a lot of the activities they no longer can have. We used to have group activities, exercise classes, bingo games and things like that, and they had to stop that because we can't get together. It may be like that everywhere, but I noticed there's a lot of empty rooms here now, that I think people are leaving because it's just not the same, and not to not appreciate what they're trying to do because they are feeling the need that they need to be more of a nursing home and help those that are sick.
I like it. It's just changing based on the needs that they see and that are obviously out there. I'm grateful that they see that and they want to take care of it. It's a wonderful place. I would highly recommend it for someone that's looking for a nursing home more than assisted living. It has wonderful meals, it's 2-stories and probably a hundred rooms or maybe less, and the rooms are of different sizes. I have one of the smaller ones just because I'm single, widow and I live alone. I have a living room, a very small kitchen, refrigerator and microwave kind of a configuration, a desk, a bedroom area that has my bed, a little office corner setup, and a nice sized bathroom with a small closet, a shower and a sink. It's comfortable for one person. I wouldn't want anything much bigger.
We had some doctors come in today in kind of a clinic area. Everyone went down and we were tested. They're being careful and I appreciate bringing the people in, and they wanted to make sure that everyone here is healthy and okay. There is a quarantined area that no one, except the doctors and people that are taking care of those who are sick, are allowed into. I'm not even sure how many people are in that area because I've never been in it.
It was a wonderful place when I moved in. They have a very nice downstairs area, a huge cafeteria or dining room area, and wonderful food. You order what you want every day and there's usually 5 or 6 selections. In the mornings, they bring you breakfast to your room. They have a movie theater area with lounge chairs and a lot of movies to choose from, and they have classrooms or activity rooms. When I first moved here, we had several activities every day. You can have a Christmas tree for your door and they have exercises, but that's scaled back. It's in a nice, kind of a countryside area, surrounded by homes. They have a nice lake out front that you can go and sit. I tried to take walks outside a lot of times just to get some fresh air. It's a nice facility surrounded by the rest of the community, but it's not in the middle of a lot of industrial or businesses or other things like that.
It's a comfortable place and they've been very good at taking care of everyone here. They have a bus or a shuttle and when I first moved here, they had outings where we go to the grocery store or to restaurants for lunch or dinner. If you needed to go shopping, they'd say, "We got room for 15 people tomorrow or the next day, sign up and we'll take you." They were wonderful about that because I don't have a car. That doesn't happen obviously right now, but hopefully that will be picked up again because the van is still sitting here in the parking lot, they haven't gotten rid of it. It's just I don't think many places are open that they can go to.
The people I've met and worked with are very sweet. There are a lot of medical people that I haven't met yet, but I see them come and go. You have a menu delivered to your room every day and you circle what you like and they deliver. Breakfast is brought to your room. Some meals are served in the room and sometimes it's served in the dining room. It's served by waitresses or the people from the kitchen. It's usually in a plastic container and it's all thrown away for safety's sake, not to have to share dishes or whatever even if they're sanitized. The food is good since it's your choice. I've had steak and a grilled cheese sandwich, and both were great.
The facilities are nice, but because of the pandemic, we're mostly in our room. There are some classes going on and when someone's available to do an exercise class, we'll have chair exercises in the hallway. A lot of times after dinner, if it's still early especially in the summer, I'll take a walk or sometimes during the day just get outside. They haven't had it recently, but they called it lemonade in the shade where you go outside and they have lemonade, iced tea or whatever you want, and we'll usually play some kind of a board guessing game where they put a phrase up on a piece of paper and you try to make words out of the phrase. We'll play Bingo or just do something fun to get everybody out and those have been cut back, just because people are not able to get out.
I love watching movies, and they had a nice place to sit with a popcorn machine in the corner. The dining facilities are wonderful, the classrooms currently aren't in use because they're smaller, but they had one that was for crafts where we would make something like a little spring basket and a Halloween decoration. The exercise classes are still going on to some extent. They had fun activities that everyone could enjoy, it's not just a specific group. Everyone that lives here are invited to come, but they haven't done it recently. Usually, there's a day-to-day calendar that's put out and they'll tell you. There's breakfast, lunch and dinner, and then here's what we're doing in the morning, here's what we're doing in the afternoon, and in the evening if you want to come down and watch a movie, take a walk or whatever. They haven't been putting the calendars out. They don't know for sure what's going to be available, and I don't think they have anyone assigned to do that currently.